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celebrated Eid, the holiday marking the end of Ramadan, at a Bat Mitzvah of all places. The day was a whirlwind of transportation and logistics performed in various heights of high heels, but somewhere in there I managed to rejoin the living and eat lunch right there in public in the middle of the day, with everyone around me acting like it was completely normal. It's the small miracles that count the most.

At the reception, M. interrupted my conversation with my long lost relative, the Indian Chief, to guide me outside where the lawn overlooked the flat marsh. There in the distance, about to set behind a silhouetted hill, was the most perfect sliver of crescent moon hung in the inky pinky swath of dusk. In Islam one is encouraged to see for one's own eyes the changing of the months as signified by the new crescent moon, to personally engage with the cosmology of each event. And when one spies it, we can say what the Prophet (SAAS) said:

Ya Hilalun, Rabbee wa Rabbuka Allah — O Moon, my Lord and your Lord are God.

Posted by Satya at 9:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ust popping in to share an inspirational mastery link. It's about pizza!

A Pizza Odyssey

Posted by Satya at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

ight and I are not necessarily friends. The consistent blackness outside makes it hard for me to find my bearings. It's colder, and the glare of the lamps inside obstructs the world beyond the windows. And I am inside, because what business does a lady have out there when darkness falls? I heard someone's mother once say that nothing much good ever happens after midnight, and the squeaky clean part of myself tends to agree.

But we've formed an uneasy pact, night and I. Because it's prime time for productivity these days when I can have a full tummy and a hot cup of coffee. Otherwises I'm useless, listless, distracted. My work is suffering from lack of rhythm. I'm suffering from lack of rhythm. So I need the night to hold onto, to get a thing or two done, to tip the scales of the day back a little bit toward normalcy.

I don't like it, being a night person. But it's a temporary arrangement. Ramadan challenges me to probe around outside my comfort zone. Before it started I thought to myself, "I'll just keep on with my normal day, I'll just be hungry and thirsty — so what?" But it's not that simple. It's one month of submission, over and over. With every rakah I'm being kneaded. I wake when I do not want to. I fast when I do not want to. I work when I do not want to. It's a vulnerable state, being jostled outside of oneself. So I'll take what the night has to give.

Posted by Satya at 9:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)